


protagonists and heroes

by cosmicpoet



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Angst, Canon Rewrite, F/M, ending rewrite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-30 17:07:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19407652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicpoet/pseuds/cosmicpoet
Summary: The two most important people in Maki's life play the same role very differently.





	protagonists and heroes

Kaito wanted to be a hero, and look where that got him. Maki hates him for it, some days, that damn _stupid_ smile he gave her, like he was trying to make her look anywhere but at the blood dripping down his chin; how he asked for her to send him off with one last smile, and it sounded so much like begging. And, when she couldn’t do that, he stung her with an apology, taking all of the blame for something that he didn’t do, and she suspects that it was just easier for him. Easier to lie like it was the truth, to pretend that he wasn’t terrified, to tell himself that he could be the selfless hero just one last time.

And of course, he died smiling. As much as she wants to falsify a fantasy that it was because he was thinking of her, she knows that it is because he experienced personal satisfaction for perhaps the first time in his life. With all of the bravado that he gave in the killing game, the role he forced himself into like it was a desperate attempt to mean something, and all of the parts of him that taught her how to unapologetically be herself, it’s hard to imagine that he was anything but a hero. It’s because of this that she finds it so hard to blame him for the way he faced his own death; she knows that he was just trying to reconcile himself with the fact that all of his dreams weren’t achieved, trying to find out where the truth behind the hero began, right up until the end.

But god damn it, it still hurts. She can rationalise it however she wants, but the only truth that matters now is that she loved him, and he left her, and she wants to carve out a place in her own skin for him to return and take over the second chance at life that she never asked for.

It would have been easier for her to be executed in that trial room.

And what for? Because they’re back there, now, and she’s looking at another hero. Shuichi isn’t like Kaito, he never asked for this role - at least, the Shuichi that _she_ knows didn’t, and that’s all that matters. Even with Tsumugi’s bitter lies, and the reveal of who they were supposed to have been before this, Maki can’t bring herself to hate him like she wants to hate Kaito. She loves him far too much, and her hopes are so intrinsically linked to how he will carry on Kaito’s legacy by ending this all, forever. It would be so sweet to die right here, she thinks, for the trial room to erupt like a phoenix, and for nothing to be left except the knowledge that she won’t have to live in a world without the first person she ever truly learned to love.

But it doesn’t.

Instead, it crumbles.

The phoenix rests in Shuichi’s eyes, and she trusts him, as she free-falls through the chaos and tries to find something to land on, if only to make sense of all of this. She catches a glimpse of Tsumugi, bravely facing her own death, right up until the last moment, when fear fills her eyes and she looks upwards just a little too late. And like that, she’s crushed. Gone from existence, which Maki thinks is a fitting end.

Only, she doesn’t have much time for thought right now. She’s being assaulted on all sides by debris from the collapsing structure as she takes a final, gasping breath, when something dark and heavy falls onto her, and she thinks she sees Kaito’s face for a moment - just a moment - until the world decides that the only fitting end is for everything to become nothing at all.

Just as she was knocked unconscious, she’s jolted awake by much the same feeling. It’s just the remnants of the glass dome, collapsing around her, and the glass looks so much like stars; she wonders what could possibly be at the centre of such a universe. But, as she always has, she pulls herself up and tries to carry on, the weight of everything she’s lost heavy on her burdened shoulders.

As she stumbles across the rubble, she sees something. A trace of dark blue, something twisted, something that can’t possibly be real. It takes her a minute for her eyes to focus, and then she can put a name to the nameless.

Shuichi.

He’s lying at an unnatural angle on the ground, his eyes closed. His old hat, the thing about him that she wants the courage to forget, is clutched to his chest, and he doesn’t look peaceful - he looks petrified.

It takes her another moment to process that this isn’t what she should be seeing. No, it means that he’s dead, and the hat in his hands means that he died clinging onto the remnants of anything that used to comfort him.

She drops to her knees, something flooding through her body, removing all of the adrenaline and making her weak all over; on her hands and knees, she crawls the rest of the way to him, tearing more holes in her skin, until she’s right next to him, lifting up his head and laying it in her lap.

“Not you too,” she begs, sobbing, “please…don’t leave me.”

He doesn’t respond.

All she can do is clutch onto him, grasping at the corners of his clothes, pulling him closer into her like she can hug him back to life; she just wants to be close to someone that she trusts, and to not have to face the reality that everyone who loved her is dead, and she - ever unworthy and broken - is left to pick up the pieces of the lives that they should never have had to leave behind.

First Kaito, and now Shuichi. Shock quickly dissipates into jealousy, pure and unadulterated _resentment,_ that they, who so deserved to live, were killed and she wasn’t. They both had the passion of living in them, a fight to be taken to the corners of the universe, a loud and unrelenting claim to the life that keeps being manipulated by Team Danganronpa.

And now, they’re gone.

She doesn’t know how long she sobs, only that there comes a time when she has no tears left in her. At some point, she must have weaved her fingers into his, because she’s clutching onto him like he’s only sleeping, like there’s just enough of a lie left to make something good out of any of this.

All she can do is press onwards, with Kaito’s coat and Shuichi’s hat claimed as her own, to become the protagonist in her own future.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed this!


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